Hmmm, both good and bad aspects here on this, I think
The Navy’s New High-Speed Boat Crawls Onto Land
The Interceptor doesn’t stop where the water ends.Sure, the French-made Iguana Interceptor is a high-speed boat. But it’s also capable of deploying tank-like tracks that let it leave the water and crawl onto land. The Navy plans to use the boats for shallow water surveillance missions, where its land and sea capabilities will come in handy, according to Popular Science.
At sea, the Interceptor looks like any other boat: it has a fiberglass, carbon fiber-reinforced hull; two 350-horsepower outboard engines; and the ability to reach up to 50 knots, or 57 miles per hour (mph) on land. The Interceptor is typically configured with seats for five and can carry a total of 2,645 pounds.
All of those features are pretty normal for fast boats, but the Interceptor’s hull conceals a neat trick: on command, it hydraulically deploys a pair of tank-like rubber tracks. The Kevlar-reinforced tracks allow the vehicle to crawl directly out of the water onto land at a speed of 4.3 mph. The vehicle can deploy the tracks in just 8 seconds, and on land, it’s nearly 11 feet tall.
It is kinda cool but even the ability to transverse the sea / land demarcation is still limited. To be honest, I have no experience with this kind of thing but there are are beaches where this would be a tremendous asset. There are others, however, that the geography wouldn’t be the great fit that the article wants to boast about. Then again, what Special Forces wants, they generally get – money and expenses are not an issue – they get the cool toys because there can be very specific needs at certain times that nothing else works.
(H/T: Popular Mechanics)
